(Originally posted October 2001)

At the moment I’m feverishly awaiting the new stuff by …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. Record label redtape looks like holding up the next album until January but let’s hope that’s not the case as it’s more than two years since TOD released a proper record in the UK. Either way there’s a single out next month which will feature my favourite of the new songs, Homage. They’ve been playing this one at their recent live dates and even let slip an MP3 demo copy to the fans. And it’s a stormer of a song – Jason’s trademark wailing sounding more urgent than ever as the guitars reach a frenetic pace trying to keep up to speed with the pounding drums. Which makes the little dips into downbeat thoughtfulness seem all the more unexpected.

If that’s not enough Jason Reece action to keep me happy [and, quite frankly, it isn’t] then there’s his gothic electronica side project A Roman Scandal. The single Lost in a Scandal [Paintcan Chandelierier] is enjoyable enough with it’s quietly muttered vocals and stuttering drums but for the real fun download the three MP3s from their website. Recorded live, they bubble and groove and you can just picture Jason drunkenly stumbling about like the crazy fool he is, ranting and whooping while the music whirls around him.

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Yes, yes, blah, blah, neglect, sorry etc. but there is new stuff coming right up.

First off, some interviews from the archives of Oxford’s excellent charity event Audioscope. These interviews have previously only been available in the event programmes but now everyone can read them. The first one up right now is with the very friendly FOUR TET, soon to be followed by Scout Niblett, Clinic, Piano Magic and Michael Rother. Bet you can’t wait!

Secondly, it seems apt that you all voted for my columns next as it’s my birthday next week. However, upon re-reading them, it seems more like a cruel punishment. Nevertheless, I have swallowed my pride and you can read all my ramblings in full over the next couple of months, starting Friday. In my defence, I wrote them eight years ago. They are also amusingly filled with predictions for the future, none of which have come to pass so far. Go me.

Newer readers may be impressed to discover my loyalty to certain names and phrases – diskant was been my username for everything from my first steps on to the internet back in 1995 and Asking For Trouble was my column name back in 2001 and went on to be the name of my record label and now artistic endeavours. No wonder Google loves me.

Okay, carry on.

Here’s another split for all you, um, split lovers. Only this time it’s a bit more metal. Robotic Empire put out this seriously delicious double vinyl split between the unequaled Nadja and the mighty (and new to me) A Storm Of Light.

A Storm Of Light absolutely destroys their side of the record with the two songs “Brother” and “Sister” each about 10 minutes long. These are a couple of intensely epic metal tracks, sharing elements from many other of my most beloved metal acts like Big Business, Boris, Pelican, Torche, and Envy. Lead singer Josh Graham (of Neurosis, Battle Of Mice, ex-Red Sparowes) has a perfect voice for metal. It’s deep and smooth, resonates in between your ears, and it’s not too over the top. It works so well with the form of grand post metal whatever that A Storm Of Light is quickly perfecting.

For those unaware, I am something of a Nadja fanboy. I geeked out on my blog about an upcoming show that Nadja was playing in the Boston area and Aidan Baker (man behind Nadja) saw it, and consequently knew who I was at the show (aka I was famous for two seconds). I talked to him and Leah (girl behind Nadja) a bit and got Aidan to sign the book he wrote. I normally don’t do the whole signature thing (I just generally think it’s just kinda lame) but I really couldn’t help myself this time. Anyway, I thought you deserved a little backstory before I started showering this new Nadja track with sincere (but perhaps biased) praise.

“I Make From Your Eyes The Sun” is why I love Nadja. It’s just so fucking perfect. It starts out kinda lightweight and dreamy, a little hi-hat keeping time with the guitars and piano. You know how it goes, the calm before the storm. The only warning you get is a trio of drum beats, then it kicks into full blown beautiful gauzy metal. The 20+ minutes that this song lasts isn’t nearly enough for me. I could listen to Nadja’s fuzzy wall of metal forever and never think twice about what else I was missing. It moves so slowly that you couldn’t (or maybe shouldn’t) bang your head but it’s far from the funeral doom sludge that crawls at a glacier’s pace. This is the kind of metal that makes you bang your fist into your thigh with your eyes closed tight, trying not to cry because you’re fucking metal dammit. But you can’t help it. No one can. Nadja is just too gorgeous.

One of the best parts of this split is that the second LP comes with remixes that one band did for the other’s songs. And they’re just as good if not better than the originals. Coupled with amazing packaging (choice of “Glacier” or “Blood Moon” colored vinyl, yes please), this thing is a truly spectacular record. If there was ever a split to buy, this would be it folks.

A Storm Of Light
Nadja
Robotic Empire

Solar-powered theremins! In 3D!

The Electron Club, based at the CCA, is Geek Heaven on Sauchiehall Street. The linked video not only features theremins powered by the sun, but it’s filmed in old-school red & blue glasses 3-D.

For a person that’s into the kind of music that I’m into, I’m slightly ashamed to say I’ve never really listened to either Maserati or Zombi. I knew slightly more about Zombi than I did Maserati but that still wasn’t much. So when I saw they were putting out a limited vinyl only release on Temporary Residence (already sold out at the label, sorry), I figured there wasn’t a better way to get to know either of these much lauded bands.

Maserati throws down 4 tracks (or 2, however you wanna look at it) of superb post-rock. I only wish I had heard this 5 years ago, back when I was devouring as much post-rock as I could. Not that this isn’t good, because it is, but I feel even special post-rock, like Maserati’s slightly spacey & Krauty take on it, just can’t do for me what it used to.

Zombi attempts to tackle their side all in one take with a song called “Infinity.” And while it does only last about 13 minutes, it’s a wonderful 13 minutes of analog synth that seems to last for, well, at least a long time. But it’s not just pure synth drone, like I expected. At about 4 minutes in, this crazy drummer emerges and just goes to town. At first, he takes control of the song, dominating the underlying synth, but eventually he lets up a bit and the two instruments team up to finish off the song in the most epically moody and creepy danceable way possible. This one’s a keeper.

Maserati
Zombi
Temporary Residence

“All the right influences are intact (Pavement, Weezer…)” – says Ghettoblaster. The Delicious are “shooting from the hip… throwing of splashes of numerous flavours of ramshackle pop” according to Daytrotter. But the best till last: “I’m so proud of my grandson” – Grandma. What better advertising sticker could possibly be slapped upon the cover for this tasty new album?

(How can you have “the right influences” by the way?)

The Delicious play sweet sweet indie-rock all the way from Indiana, with nothing frighteningly novel coming from the speakers but there are some decent tunes.They decide not to take the most conventional road down pop/indie lane. Songs are very well-written and unpredictable in the best sense of the word, fitting together like a charmingly motley jigsaw. The stomping beat in ‘One Leg’ is infectious, and so is the general joy that the album brings.

It might sound really patronising to deem this album ‘pleasant’ or ‘uplifting’ but it really is. It’s not going to charm the hairs off your leg but there’s enough ol’ toe-tapping rock, and very memorable, very catchy songs on this one. Get stuck in then!

The Delicious

Pascal Ansell

(Originally posted April 2003)

Hey kids. This month, I’ve been VERY, VERY EXCITED INDEED about my recent promotion in the diskant staff to diskant Talent Spotter, which now means that I have a duty to you, the diskant reader, to hand pick some great new bands and write words about them that say stuff like what they sound like and whether they’re any good and stuff. So to start you off, here are five lovely new bands you might want to go and seek out. Well, four bands and a record label from Italy, anyway. Happy listening.

4tRECk are random, beautifully random. A ‘”musette’-style cover version’ of ‘Slave Ship’ by the almighty Jesus Lizard (what is off of their album Liar). Only there are no mind-blistering David Yow screams and no squalling, urgent walls of guitar noise. Instead, we’re treated to a drum machine, a piano and 132 accordions battling it out in the all-in National Touch & Go Sea Shanty competition 2003. All told, it’s a right glorious knees-up around the old Joanna and a fascinating way of making something new rather than attempting a note-for-note retread with unbearable indie earnestness. Interesting also that it’s the lead track on the EP, with second track ‘Socasam’ sounding for all the world like a one-minute theme tune to a nightmarish children’s TV show, presumably featuring monsterdragons knitted from the remains of kids who didn’t go to bed when they were told to. ‘Frankensinatra’ does exactly what it says on the tin, a ghostly proto-hip hop beat backing snippets of Ol’ Blue Eyes dipping in and out of the mix hypnotically – and all, apparently, deriving from an initial accident. And closing track ‘Eye of the Tiger’ is 35 seconds of Rocky meets Alice in Acidland, stabs of instrumentation mutating into a drunken cover of ‘Eye of the Tiger’. There are some great ideas at work here, partially formed by chance and improvisation, but with the imagination to carry it through to completion. The main drawback is that without the backing of a solid structure to carry an idea through to completion (as they have when taking the Jesus Lizard as a template), the ideas remain half-formed, embryonic and frustratingly full of promise while not quite getting there. It’s crammed with imagination though, and that’s one of my favourite things, along with ice cream, Sundays and Turkish Delight.

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…so here are some brief mentions of decent recent pop music to get you in the right frame of mind:

Various: The Wetherbeat Scene 1988-1991 (CD, 555 Recordings 555CD88) About as niche as compilations can get, this is a collection of 35 tracks by bands that were part of a tiny scene in the tiny town of Wetherby, Yorkshire, as the 80s became 90s. What that means is Hood, Boyracer and a variety of associated bands and pseudonyms.  Ramshackle as you like, it’s squarely aimed at listeners like me who used to exchange post with these people around the time of these recordings. Pure nostalgia, through a filter of noise, faltering voices and the occasional glimmering of greatness. 555 Recordings

The Bumblebees: EP (CD single, self-released) It’s just like the old days, getting a handwritten letter (replete with stickers and whatnot) in an envelope along with this CD. It doesn’t get more indie-pop than that, or than this music, which is super-perky and, I imagine, amazingly annoying if you’re not in the right frame of mind – it’s like somebody going ‘come on, chin up! chin up!’ repeatedly after you’ve just had a major trauma. Given that, it raises a smile for all its intentional messiness and simplicity, cutesy Casio melodies and relentless ba-ba-ba-ing. The Bumblebees

Shrag: Shrag (CD, Where It’s At Is Where You Are WIACD016) Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Prolapse, Huggy Bear, Bis, Johnny Foreigner, Shrag. Excellenté! Buy this and write your own description. Shrag

Merchandise: Listen Up! (7″, Cityscape CITY-S-009) Okay okay, this single is available on CD as well, but the CD doesn’t come on white vinyl, now does it? Regardless of the technical implications of pressing a CD on vinyl, you just don’t get 7″ diameter CDs. Merchandise are like Baby Bird’s cheerier brother, like the Badly Drawn Boy knock-off act it’s okay to like because they’re about fifty times better. They do accomplished, layered pop music with one foot in the ‘literate, dour Northerners’ camp and the other in the one that says ‘we’ve got beards, but we’re fun and approachable’.Merchandise

Sarandon: Other People’s Records (7″, Little Car MINI 1) Jerky, angular pop music that most refreshingly doesn’t sound like Oxes, American Football, Foals or any other band that everybody still mystifyingly wants to sound like. Sarandon have more of a grip on their history than that, and sound like they’re just enjoying themselves rather than worrying about their haircuts/tuning/tapping technique/etc. Why, it’s every bit the combination of mid-period Beatnik Filmstars and Big Flame. And if you know what that means, you’ll know whether you’ll like it or not… Sarandon

(Originally posted November 2002)

An encyclopedic spread of bands from across the UK this month, and across the alphabet, as Ann Arbor and Zebedee Numchuck allow me to present what is, quite literally, an A to Z of some of the best new British bands you might want to go and have a listen to.

A is for…
Starting off like the theme from the advert for Smash instant mashed potato (the one with all those pre-Metal Mickey look-at-us-we’re-covered-in-tin-foil-aren’t we futuristic tin Steven Hawkingseses), Leicester’s Ann Arbor hereafter turn their hand to the genre known henceforth as GRAAAAAARGHcore. Take away the fact that the main riff to ‘Tensed Up’ sounds more than a little bit like ‘Selling Jesus’ by Skunk Anansie, and you’ve got a Big Black-fuelled noise party for all the family. It’s stripped down the bare essentials (there are only two members: guitar, programming and bass), and loud enough and good enough to make you honestly expect Steve Albini to pop up shouting about crows or squirrels any minute. I’ve had the privilege of seeing Ann Arbor perform live, and it took my ears two days to recover from their atomizing songs about fucking then. I’m looking forward to many more happy hours of deafness from this ‘ere demo.

G is for…
God_Only_Knows – another band combining electronics and guitars, you might think. What to expect? Only too often, bands can end up thinking they’re some kind of Renaissance men (or women), simply by the introduction of a bit of kit with ‘Roland’ stamped on the front. Refreshing then that God_Only_Knows (complete with underscores, natch) don’t drown their music under squeals, breakbeats or vocal samples, instead weaving a spacious and pretty mesmerising twist on standard post-rock fare that sets them apart nicely from the pack, thank you very much. The opening track (the fantastically-titled ‘Ailsa Stewart’) starts off promisingly, but ultimately weighs in about two minutes under its proper fighting weight, coming to a close before it’s really got going. Unlike ‘Reflections In Natural History’, seven minutes of swooping, sweeping and bleeping that genuinely gives the impression it’s got something to say for itself. It’s not all plain sailing – ‘Plane/plain’ does suffer from too many inconsequential beeps and not enough ideas, leaning rather self-consciously towards Autechre territory without committing fully to it, but on balance a offering that varies from substantial and worthwhile to flamin’ beeptastic, mate. No Beach Boys covers, either.

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Here we have some more slow-burning folk from Scotland’s Autumn Ferment label. This limited edition 7″ vinyl is by James Reid, a resident Fifer, and the sea is very well captured with serene swells and wispy electronics.

The first track ‘She waits by the Shore” is fantastic if the sound is really turned up – the room throbs with a mesmerising synth line. The mix is layered with warm electronics, decorated by clear and crisp acoustic guitar, with Reid’s voice resting somewhere in the middle. Some very minimal beat-work compliments Reid’s dark and mellow voice.

The music doesn’t quite ‘lift-off’ as you’d like it too, but then again personal expectations are nothing to be relied upon. This seems to be a ‘stop-off’ single from Reid (the songs are not intended to be on any album) so I look forward to a full release!

James Reid

Pascal Ansell